MySpace will filter music files

MySpace.com will use “audio fingerprinting” technology to block users from uploading copyright music to the social networking site, the company said Monday.

MySpace, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., said it will review all music files uploaded by community members to their online profiles. The files will be run through a music database from Gracenote Inc.

The company said users who repeatedly attempt to upload copyright music files will be permanently barred from the site.

Online sites such as MySpace and YouTube have come under fire from major record labels who have sued in some cases to prevent copyright music from being included as the soundtrack to a user-generated content.

New York

Stock options trip McKelvey

The scandal over the manipulation of stock options grants spread to yet another executive as the former chief executive of Monster Worldwide Inc. quit his board seat at the job search Web site and refused to sit for questions from fellow directors about past accounting practices.

The company announced Andrew J. McKelvey’s resignation on Monday. A board committee conducting an internal investigation into so-called “backdating” options had sought to interview McKelvey further after questioning him in July.

New York

Tycoon’s son pleads guilty

The son of billionaire oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens pleaded guilty to securities fraud Monday, admitting his role in a scheme to inflate the stock value of three companies so he could make hundreds of thousands of dollars illegally.

Michael O. Pickens, 52, of Nocona, Texas, entered the plea in U.S. District Court in Manhattan after signing an agreement calling for him to be sentenced to as little as four years and nine months in prison or as much as five years and 11 months.

Pickens was arrested July 18, 2005, and accused of sending hundreds of thousands of hoax faxes throughout the United States to fraudulently induce investors to purchase three stocks.